Heart of Glass
by DiamondNinja914
Summary: I kept it a secret for year after year, until the day she finally figured it out. And so I lived happily for seven minutes.     And then they took her away.
1. Chapter 1: My

**Okay, so in the true spirit of me-ness, I just have to do an "immediately following the end of..." fic, since I just finished Aftershock. And I thought of this. Oh, and this is going to look like it gets dirty, but it doesn't really. Keep reading and you'll understand.**

The first night was the hardest.

To Shelby, it wasn't like when Laura stayed late in the lab. It was the knowledge that she had no idea where her roommate of four years was. Somehow she'd gotten used to the sleep-mumbling, occasionally having to comfort her from a nightmare. The ones that were the worst when her partner in crime had gone missing, and when their resident Jedi had gotten murdered in front of her.

Shelby couldn't sleep.

She stared at the ceiling. She sang to herself. She had counted to four thousand when she finally gave it up. She wondered if she'd ever be able to sleep without someone else in the room again.

Since Big Blue had gotten removed from the school system a few hours earlier, "nighttime lockdown" just meant "don't leave your room, because the doors don't really lock anymore."

She got up, stretched and straightened her black nightgown. Yes, even the pajamas were color-coded. She didn't call, she just pushed the button to open the door, walked to the next room, and opened that door, too.

Wing was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall.

"Couldn't sleep," she mumbled, at the same time as he said: "That's why there are two beds."

She collapsed onto the spare.

"I snore," he warned.

"I know. I can hear you through the wall," Shelby replied.

He nodded. She was about to say something else, but not before she fell asleep.

She woke up at 2:18, to hear a voice mumbling. It wasn't the sound she was used to. She followed the noise to the bathroom, where she drew back the shower curtain to find none other than...

Franz Argentblum.

Rolling her eyes inwardly, she stumbled back to the main room and threw Wing's hairbrush at a spot right above his head. His hand snapped up, catching it, and he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

Shelby put a finger to her lips and beckoned him towards the bathroom. They stood in the doorway for a few seconds, and Franz sat up, eyes still closed, and and bellowed "NEIN!" before falling back down into the tub.

Wing suppressed a smile, but Shelby started giggling uncontrollably. Franz woke up and said something in German.

"English, buddy," Shelby said. He looked up at her for a few seconds before gasping out a garbled sentence.

"Why are you being in Wing's room in the middle of the night?"

"Oh, dear Lord," she sighed. She looked up at Wing, who almost looked amused.

"I was staying in Otto's bed, you pervert," she said. "I couldn't sleep."

"Well, he is being your boyfriend, ja?" He insisted. The room immediately got very, very uncomfortable.

"The... purpose of your visit being...," Wing drifted off.

Franz just sighed and looked at his feet.

"I am thinking maybe we should be leaving to look for the others." He was avoiding the fact that he couldn't sleep either, but he had a good point.

"It would be impossible." Wing muttered, bringing surprised glances from the other two. "And that is not a term I use lightly."

He let that sink in for a few seconds. Slowly, Shelby understood.

"He's right, we can't," she said. "Not without outside help. We're all trained in combatics. The only reason we were successful in any of the plans we had was because we had fighters, hackers, strategists, scientists... now we've got a hundred IQ points to share and the whole staff watching over the last three Alphas, us."

"Wait!" Franz exclaimed. "Nigel is emailing his father every week because Laura is helping his computer to be connecting to the internets, ja? Maybe we could be figuring that out and getting help."

Two ponytail-ed heads snapped in his direction almost immediately.

"WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY THAT?"

MEANWHILE, IN A FARAWAY PLACE CALLED LONDON...

The Shroud dropped with a soft bump in a back alleyway littered with the bodies of rats and other small creatures. The pilot turned around and shook the boy's hand before the sixteen-year-old exile walked off the stealth ship for the last time.

Otto took the map out of his pocket, and turned it until he found the orientation he was looking for. He slowly walked down the streets he'd once known so well, basked in the sun he'd rarely seen in almost four years. He arrived at the address he was looking for, a wooden door concealing a GLOVE safe house identical to the one in New York City. He didn't knock, he just closed his eyes and forced the door to come open. He trudged in, closing the door behind him and collapsing into a chair at the kitchen table.

"Hey, kid," Raven said as she plopped a glass of water in front of him. "It's not the Marriott, but I guess you expected that."

He looked up at his bodyguard before dropping his head onto the table again. Wait a second, he thought. He reviewed the picture in his head again.

He stood up suddenly and crossed the tiny living space. A toilet flushed in the tiny bathroom, and it echoed through the tiny one-bedroom apartment. But that couldn't touch Otto now. He stood beside the portable crib, where inside a tiny baby slept.

"I bet you're the cause of this whole mess, huh?" he whispered, inspecting the child's red hair and freckle-ridden face. "God, you look just like your sister."

"Oh, right," Raven explained. "They can't exactly return home, so they're staying with us for a little while, if that's okay. And if it isn't, they're staying anyhow."

"'S fine," Otto replied, not really paying attention. He must have spoken too loudly, though, because the infant woke and started screaming at the top of his lungs. Luckily, a middle-aged man came out of the restroom and picked the child up.

"Who's this?" Mr. Brand demanded, pointing at the white-haired teen. He was a shorter man with a red hair and beard, and he was... not lacking in the waistband department.

"This is Otto. Not only is he extremely helpful, but he'd do anything to get your daughter back," Raven replied. Mr. Brand nodded and left the room.

"Wait, what? How did you know about that?" Otto asked, bewildered, his thoughts flitting instantly to Shelby.

"How did I know that you were expelled and your only chance of return is to rescue the missing students? Well, I was there when the order was given, to start," she said, rolling her eyes and then stopping for a moment. "Wait, what did you think I meant?"

"Otto harbors rather prominent romantic feelings for Miss Brand," HIVEmind said simply from the device in Otto's pocket.

"You didn't have to tell her anything," the boy said, groaning and executing a double facepalm, causing the lights to flicker slightly.

"It's as I suspected," the assassin called from the kitchen. "It's not like anyone can fail to notice the fact that all you've been doing for the past four years is staring at her. And freaking out when she got kidnapped. And stuttering in her presence. And the fact that I happened to notice the two of you... what's the term? Oh, right. Snogging. By the church. So, it was practically pointless to try to hide it in the first place."

Otto groaned in despair. Again.

TWO WEEKS LATER...

Breakfast was half a can of black beans. Uncooked. Second breakfast, ten minutes later when Raven was on the phone and not paying attention, was a seemingly snot-flavored protein bar stolen from the pantry. Third breakfast was a lecture from Raven involving a lot less words, more brandishing of deadly weapons. But Otto got the point. The snot-flavored protein bars were somehow even more precious than the black beans he'd split with Doogie**(1)** earlier.

Suddenly, there was an incoming call.

Raven picked up the online conversation, and it was Mr. Darkdoom.

"Hello, Diabolus," she said with a nod.

"'Sup, Mr. D?" Otto called from across the room. Raven glared at him, and Doogie started screaming at the top of his lungs.

"Do you have those supplies we needed?" Raven asked irritably.

"Yes. We will be at the meeting point in 46 minutes," came the distorted voice from the speaker.

"Do unto others," they said in unison, and then they cut off the connection. But not before a small sound perked Otto's ears up.

"Raven? Go back and play the last few seconds again. And turn the volume way up," he instructed. And so she did. And in the last moments, an unmistakeable voice carried across the room.

"Franz, give Aunty Shelby her brush back or she'll have to RIP YOUR HEAD OFF!"

**Doogie is short for Douglas, by the way.**

**I started writing this the day after I finished Aftershock. Which was, coincidentally, my first day of high school. That Sunday night, I'd stared at the ceiling for seven hours, braided my hair several times, and did countless math problems. I almost fell asleep in my very first class of the new year.**

**And then I forgot about this. I'm a genius.**

**Oh, and review! Reviews make me more motivated to write more, so faster feedback equals faster story!**


	2. Chapter 2: name

_Hello?_

_Is it me you're looking for?_

_Cause I wonder where you are_

_And I wonder what you do_

_Are you somewhere feeling lonely, or is someone loving you?_

_Tell me how to win your heart_

_For I haven't got a clue_

_But let me start by saying_

_I love you_

_Hello, by Lionel Richie_

"EVERYBODY UP!"

_Ugh..._

Laura sat up and rubbed her face with her eyes. Wait, no, rubbed her eyes with her face. That's not it...

"I'm rubbing my face and my eyes with my hands!" She exclaimed to the stone walls of her tiny room. God, she was so tired.

She changed quickly into her far too baggy uniform, and sprinted down the hall. She had to admit, the current situation, when put eloquently, SUCKED, but she ran faster every day. She could do two pullups without assistance, and she had almost hit Tom in sparring.

Almost.

Tom. He was becoming more of a problem every day. The poor boy was either confused or had recently suffered massive brain trauma, and Laura was caught between wanting to kill him and giving him a hug.

"TRAINEE BRAND!" Speaking of the little devil. "You are late to breakfast. What if we all get hit? What if they make us do extra pullups, or have later lights-out, or-"

"Shut up, Tom. You know you got here after I did."

Oh, right. The current situation had also brought out the best of her inner Shelby, and words, when tempted, poured out like venom. It felt good.

Breakfast was eaten standing up. Oatmeal, so unlike the pancakes and syrup that she was used to. When she got to the line, though, a small surprise was waiting.

"Morning!" Said the girl who was serving. Laura looked up in surprise. Breakfast at the Glasshouse was normally solemn and nervous, and almost no one spoke English. To her delight, the cheery one was a familiar face. Her hair had faded to a dusky mauve, but Penny Richard's icy blue eyes were as bright as the day the two had met.

"Oh, hey Penny. I see they let you out of the infirmary," Laura commented with her first, and most likely only, small smile of the day.

"Yeah. Just to run errands." That was when Laura noticed the wheelchair. "Oh, I'll be fine. It's only for a few weeks."

Laura dropped her voice. "How's Nigel?" She'd gone in to check in on him, but he was never awake. Once the training had gotten more intensive, though, she hadn't been able to return.

"He's ok. He lost a lot of blood, but he'll probably be out tomorrow, they say. Did you know his hair is brown?" Laura laughed.

Someone shouted something in Russian from the top tier. The other Alphas looked immediately towards, Tom, who translated dutifully.

"Madame Furan says that we all will begin the daily lesson in two minutes, and anyone who is late will run three laps outside the compound." He smiled up at Anastasia Furan, and she looked at him with an odd expression of warmth.

"He disgusts me," Penny said. She looked up at Laura. "You know, my hair's brown too. And Tom just wears contacts. His eyes are blue like mine."

Laura looked down at her friend in surprise. She'd always know those beautiful brown eyes were too good to be true, but all instincts aside, she knew exactly what Penny was talking about. "How far apart are you?"

"We were found on the same night, just in two different dumpsters, across the street from each other. They never did a DNA test, and they just assumed it was coincidence. All the same, they usually give last names alphabetically. His last name would have been Scarlett, but they decided to let us have the same last initail on the off chance that we did turn out to be siblings. Not that the one letter really mattered."

This revelation changed everything. If they were to escape, there was no way Penny would leave without her brother. And it looked like there was no way Tom was leaving.

Laura looked off into the distance for a moment, chewing what was left of her oatmeal. And far off, she saw one of the attendants exit a door she hadn't noticed. Behind it was the unmistakeable glow of a computer screen.

Otto and Raven arrived at the rendezvous point with the Brand family in tow. Raven was still fuming about the discovery that the remaining Alphas were aboard the Megalodon. There was no way she could have known. Dr. Nero had been off at meetings since the Hunt, and there was no AI within the school to keep track of things. So the disappearance of the last three students had gone unnoticed.

"Hey, Mr. D!" Otto greeted as their small raft was taken aboard, and Raven rolled her eyes at his new, odd nickname for the owner of the massive submarine. They set the rented powerboat back in the direction of the shop, and hoped it made it back to its owner unscathed. The Brands looked around, bewildered. Doogie started crying.

Again.

"Oh, and Shelby, I know that at least you, if not Wing and Franz also, are listening," Otto said, looking up at a ventilation shaft in the ceiling. He was in a particularly good mood today, compared to the last two weeks.

"We're down here, Linux," came a voice from behind a large crate in the far end of the docking bay. Shelby walked over, about to shake his hand or something when he was attacked by a flying bear hug(particularly painful) from Silent Death himself. After being freed from the giant, smelly blob he allowed himself to be clapped(also particularly painful) on the shoulder by Wing. They all smiled at each other, then resumed their usual(as of recent) gloomy looks.

"It is nice to see you again, my friend. I did not anticipate this meeting for quite awhile, given the circumstances." Wing told Otto. The others nodded.

Behind them, Raven and Darkdoom were arguing about the wisdom of taking in the three fugitives. Raven was losing.

"Honestly, we were going to tell you we were here once you came. Just you, though. Not the crazy Russian woman." Shelby kept glancing at Raven.

"We are having something important to be telling you!" Franz said urgently, cutting off the blonde. "There is being-"

"A base not far from here," Shelby cut in, trying to finish her point. "It used to belong to H.O.P.E., but now it belongs to a fir company centered in Ukraine. A flare was shot off last week from inside, and when we came in closer we heard screams."

Otto had to sit down. He plopped onto a nearby chair and rubbed his temples, trying not to think about exactly what might be going on in there, and to whom.

"Aww!" Shelby squealed, and flew over to the other side of the dock. She grabbed Doogie and was back with the other Alphas in half a second. "It's a baby! Hi there! I haven't seen a- oh."

She looked down for a moment, then brought the child close to her chest and held him there silently, tears threatening. But they didn't prevail. Wing put his arm around her for a moment and she brought the boy back to his family. The others followed.

"Hi. I'm... uh... sorry I... kidnapped your son. It's been awhile since I've seen a little kid and I... lost it." Otto noted that Doogie had stopped crying when she'd picked him up. "You must be Mr. and Mrs. Brand. My name is Shelby, and this is my boyfriend Wing, and the resident... uh... German who thinks he's a ninja, Franz. I'm Laura's roommate, and best friend, I like to think. Unless of course, I've been bumped down from the top of the list."

She looked at Otto. Suddenly he realized what she was about to say and tried to give a meaningful look, but she didn't seem to notice.

"It must have been awkward living with your daughter's boyfriend for two weeks, huh?" She asked with a small smirk, and Otto inwardly screeched every curse he knew whilst attempting a straight face. And failing. He hardly knew Laura's mom, but he could tell that her husband hated him with the fiery passion of a thousand suns.

"Her WHAT?" Mr. Brand braked, and conversation in the immediate vicinity ceased.

"Oh, gosh, I have had to pee for that entire boat ride. I really do have to _run!_" Otto stammered, his last word cut off by the fact that he was running down the hall to the only place he could think of-the dorm he'd used when he had last stayed aboard the Megalodon. He rushed through the halls and closed the door behind him when he reached his destination. He looked around the room, realizing that the two-occupant dorm now belonged to someone else. And when he saw the two belts of shiruken hanging in the closet, he ran back out and collapsed in the science lab.

_You jump to conclusions rather_ _quickly._

Timing impeccable, Shelby ran into the room. Otto looked at her in disgust.

"Why are you looking at me like that? And why'd you flip when you ran out of the room I share with Wing and Franz?" She asked, walking slowly towards him.

He realized what she'd just said, but didn't say anything. He just shook his head and sank to the bottom of a tall cabinet where lab coats were hanging. It had been a long time since he'd cried, but he did now.

Shelby came and sat next tom him after shutting the door.

"Hey, Linux. Sorry 'bout that. I didn't know you hadn't told him, I wouldn't have said anything if I had."

Otto just buried his face in his arms.

"Look, in a coupla days, it'll all be over," she said, and he looked up, confused. "Remember that fur company we told you about? I'm going in there tomorrow, and I'm gonna get everybody out. And who ever's there that isn't one of us, I'm gonna blow 'em up. And all of us- all eight of us- are going to sit down and laugh about this, like it was no problem."

"I want to go in there with her."

"No, Fanchu. It's not going to happen. I don't even want Trinity going in there, and you know she's better than you by now. Plus, she's got more experience with the breaking-and-entering-without-breaking-anything thing, and we need you here on the bridge. Tell you what, she's going to have a sub dermal tracking device, so we know where she is at all times, and she's also going to be talking to us through an earpiece. There's no way this can go wrong."

"I don't care. Two sets of eyes are better than one."

"Yes they are. One on the ground, and one here in the water."

"I still don't understand why we can't remotely access the security cameras."

"Look, I've told you, they'll know something's up. And Malpense can't do anything about it either, they'll catch him, too. Don't worry. Everything will be fine."

But somehow, Wing was not reassured in the least.

The bridge on the Megalodon housed two huge screens, each facing each other. At the moment, neither were on. But the speakers were, and every few seconds the crew would get an update form Shelby on her progress.

"Ok," she half-whispered. One never got used to the fact that no one could hear you outside an ISIS helmet. "I'm in."

The next few minutes passed like molasses. Wing stood less than three feet from the speakers, seemingly impassive, but a select few knew just how worried he was. Otto sat at the Comms station, next the seat Wing had abandoned to sit vigil by the stereo system. Suddenly, the albino began to feel an itching at the back of his skull.

"Huh?" he said, looking at the monitor. "Hey! Someone's trying to intercept the frequency!"

The Technology Officer immediately ran to his side and began typing commands without looking.

"Stop!" Otto said, as he watched the screen. When he realized the TO wasn't paying attention, he knocked him out of the way and began to reverse the damage he'd done. "You weren't looking, dammit! It wasn't an interception after all, they were just trying to communicate with us!"

"On a frequency we were already using? How would they know what frequency we were using?" The TO screeched, and ran back over to the console. Otto blocked him, because the answer dawned on him right as the last reversal command went through. The TO continued to fight him. Doogie started screaming, his parents at the farthest possible part of the bridge from Otto. "They're using a GLOVEnet login to try to hail us!"

Otto burst at that point, and shoved the Officer away from the console, which he'd finally gotten access to. "DON'T YOU REALIZE WHOSE ACCESS CODE THAT IS?" He turned and brought up the feed on the left screen, not even bothering to wonder whether it was just a hacker. He held his breath while the video loaded, hoping connection wouldn't be lost.

But any such worries were lost when Laura's face appeared on the display.

Otto turned on the webcam at his console, and placed it to face the screen so that he could look and talk at the same time.

"Otto? What are you doing on the Megalodon? Oh, never mind. I have to tell you- we're being held in a place called the Glasshouse. Everyone's here, all the missing Alphas except nine. The attendants were executed before we arrived," she said. She looked ragged, and almost odd with a plain white t-shirt on.

"Where is this Glasshouse?" Otto asked, confused. Laura's eyes shifted to Raven, who was now standing behind him.

"It's in Siberia," Raven said quietly, but evenly. Otto turned and looked at her.

"You knew where she- where they were this whole time and you didn't say anything?" He asked, caught between the joy of seeing Laura and horror at the prospect that one of the people he trusted most may have betrayed him- a feeling he was starting to get used to.

"I didn't know that's where the Alphas were." Raven's voice was deadly calm, but she turned and left the room in such a hurry he knew she must be upset. The room was still.

"She used to go there. In fact, she was a star student, from what I hear," Laura informed him. "Oh, by the way. I need you to do a quick search on an experiment Professor Pike did seventeen years ago- it crossed the DNA of Dr. Nero and one other teacher. I remember seeing her face and not recognizing it. Anyways, run a morph sequence and see what their kids would look like now."

Otto nodded, confused.

A look of surprise crossed Laura's face. "Mum?" Otto turned to see the remaining Brands standing behind him. The screen flickered for the tiniest fraction of a second.

"Hello, Laura," Mrs. Brand crooned. Mr. Brand, however, had no such look of pleasure.

"I did not know about the situation with Mandy," he began, and his daughter looked down, but back up again. "I thought you were a good girl. I thought you were _normal._ Maybe a little more than normal. We only found out around two years ago, what you did. And your mother and I felt nothing but shame."

The expression on Mary Brand's face did not reflect this.

"Then we were _kidnapped,_ held in a _cell _for two _weeks_ with _no_ explanation, and then some crazy Russian woman comes out of _nowhere _and rescues us. Now I would've been a bit more grateful, until I found out she was with you folk. My last hope was that maybe it was just her job, that maybe you didn't go mingling yourself too much in _these_ types," he looked for the briefest moment at Otto, "but I was wrong. I guess I don't have to regret the decision to have a new first child after all." He looked at his wife. "Is there any of that leftover asparagus from last night's dinner?" Mary Brand nodded. Mr. Brand turned and left the view of the camera, and pulled his wife and son along with him.

The room was cold as ice. Laura remained still for a few moments, and was about to say something when Shelby interrupted. No one had been pressing the comm button, and she hadn't heard any of what was going on.

"I see her. She's right there. Not fifty feet in front of me."

Wing shot across the bridge and slammed the comm down.

Otto realized that last night's dinner hadn't included asparagus.

"Who do you see? Who is it?" It had finally dawned on everyone that if the Glasshouse were in Siberia, then they must be at the wrong location.

"Laura is. She's right there."

Laura, having put all feelings aside for the moment, screamed "PRESS THAT COMM BUTTON! NOW!" Otto and Wing slammed their palms on the red trigger at the same time.

"Shel?" Laura said, her voice shaking but getting stronger. "Shel, it's me. Don't say anything, I gave to tell you everything as fast as I can. Listen- IT'S A TRAP. Get out of there as fast as you can. I'm at a place called the Glasshouse in Siberia, an alter ego of HIVE run by Anastasia Furan and funded by the Russian government. That's where the other Alphas and I are. I saw that you guys are in Europe, I don't know where, but get out. Do you hear me? I-"

She was cut off by a grunt from the other end of the line, and an "Oh, no."

"WHAT IS IT?" Laura asked, panicked. Grime glistened on her face, and the sweat that now ran down her face made her look like a Scottish zebra.

The bridge could hear Shelby sigh into the mike. "I guess it's a good thing I have one-a them sub dermal implants." She took on an urgent tone. "Laura, I'm gonna do the talking now. I want you to know that your Aunty Shelby loves you very, very much, and if you see her, she's not gonna act the same, ok? Just promise me something now, because if things are going like I think they're going, we're gonna see each other real soon. Now I just want you to know that when you see your Aunty Shelby, I want you to put a gun to her head and pull the trigger if it comes to that, ok? Because your Aunty Shelby would rather die than see anything happen to you."

A sinking feeling began in the pit of Otto's stomach. And judging by the fact that Laura was crying, he knew she got it too. Laura just nodded and made a little noise in the back of her throat, the closest she could come to acknowledgment.

"And, Wing, you too," Shelby continued. "Don't you let me hurt you either. And if it comes down to it, don't be afraid to do what you gotta do." Her breath was coming in ragged gasps, and her voice was strained. Wing was frozen. "And, yesterday when Franz stole my brush, I borrowed yours. So if you ever want to clone me... well, have fun. I-"

She let out a sudden cry.

And then the line went dead.

One look from Wing and Otto knew what to do. He flew across the bridge and pressed his palm into the control panel for the screen opposite Laura's. He accessed the security cameras from the building Shelby was in remotely, not worrying about getting caught. If it was a trap, the enemy had known all along.

He finally reached the shot he was looking for, just in time. The feed was in full color. On the floor was a crumpled figure in an ISIS suit, battery pack busted open. It sat up, pulled off its helmet, and yanked the small dart from behind its ear. Then she who would have been Shelby got to her feet, and turned in the general direction of the screen. Her face was bleeding and she limped from the damage done from the explosion of the ISIS battery pack. But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was her eyes, which had once been a deep blue. They were the color of obsidian, the same obsidian as the sketchy tattoos that were already seeping themselves across her skin.

**So, what did you think? **

**Ok, so the "asparagus" thing was a total Terra Nova reference and if you've seen that, you know where this is going. If you haven't, well, there's always the next chapter.**

**What do you think of the experiment?**

**Review, review, review!**


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